If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
Lk 14:26
My wife recently posted the following quote from Oswald Chambers’ daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest as her Facebook status: “Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever.” It was a statement that had spoken very deeply to her as she read it that morning, but as the responses began to flow in from others, she was surprised to see some Christian friends resisting the point Mr. Chambers was making. She defended her post by quoting the verse above, and it would seem to me that many Christians don’t really grasp the extent of Christ’s statement.
Too often, we read this verse and immediately begin to explain away the word “hate,” but let’s stop and consider it for a minute. Christ, the living Word of God, chose this precise word. You can look it up in the original Greek, but you won’t be able to get around the force of it. It is the same word translated “hated” when Jesus described the way the world would feel about His disciples: “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” (Lk 21:17) No one questions the forcefullness of that usage of the word, and yet we always soften the verse above. We shouldn’t. Christ picked that word because of its strength. He picked that word to get our attention and show us what was really required to be His disciple!
We’ve recently finished reading a section in Conformed to His Image where Ken Boa described seven practices common to those that finish their spiritual race well. He was careful, however, to point out that none of the other six will really be practiced unless the first one, which is intimacy with Christ, is the center of our existence. He’s absolutely right. Christ must be our everything. We must love Him to such a degree that it cannot even be compared to the love we have for another. In fact, except we love Him with all of our being, it is impossible to properly relate to those around us.
When Oswald Chambers said we have to live face to face with God without taking anyone else into account, he was describing the life of a true disciple of Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter what my dad and mom think, what my wife and children would have me do, or what my brothers and sisters believe would be best. My personal opinion doesn’t even matter. What’s important is what God thinks. What would He have me do? His command and will for my life is my only direction. An attitude short of that is not true discipleship. We will never fully obey God if we filter everything he tells us to do through the opinions of those around us. But if we are completely given to Him, loving Him to such a degree that it can’t even be compared to the affection we feel for anyone else, then we’ll find our love for those around us to be greater than it ever was before we were fully submitted to Christ. Only as you “love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind” will you be able to love “your neighbor as yourself.” (Lk 10:27)
Jamie